Central Bank posts Rs 169-cr profit

Higher recovery, lower provisions help to report better number

Central Bank of India posted a net profit of Rs 169 crore for the quarter ended March, aided by a sharp rise in recovery from written-off accounts and lower provisioning for bad loans. The state-owned bank had recorded a loss of Rs 105 crore in the year-ago period.

The bank’s net profit for FY13 (full year) jumped 90 per cent to Rs 1,015 crore from Rs 533 crore in FY12.

M Tanksale, chairman and managing director, said the lower provisions for non-performing assets (NPAs) and higher income from recoveries helped improve bottom-line in the fourth quarter.

The net interest income grew 21.53 per cent to Rs 1,535 crore from Rs 1,263 crore a year ago. Non-interest income rose 47 per cent to Rs 635 crore from Rs 432 crore in the year-ago period. The recovery in written-off accounts in the fourth quarter of FY13 was Rs 136 crore, up from Rs 47 crore in the year-ago period. The profit on foreign exchange transactions grew to Rs 64 crore from Rs 23 crore. The profit from sale of investments went up to Rs 143 crore from Rs 98 crore. The bank made lower provisioning of Rs 445 crore against Rs 859 crore towards bad loans in the fourth quarter. The asset quality has also improved on a sequential basis, at the gross and net levels.

Its credit rose by 16.9 per cent to Rs 1,76,234 crore at end of March 2013. The deposit rose by 15.22 per cent to Rs 2,26,038 crore. It expects to grow deposits and advances by 18 per cent in 2013-14.

Gross NPA declined to 4.80 per cent from 5.64 per cent and net NPA dipped to 2.90 per cent from 3.79 per cent on sequential basis. Tanksale said the bank is working to bring down gross NPAs below 4 per cent and net NPAs below 2.5 per cent by March 2014.

The outstanding restructured loan book was Rs 22, 681 crore, out of which Rs 11,816 crore was from exposure to the power sector, especially power distribution companies.

The bank’s capital adequacy was 11.49 per cent with tier-I of 8.09 per cent. It may look at raising fresh capital through instruments such as follow-on public offer and qualified institutional placement, said Tanksale.

The bank’s board has recommended a dividend of 25 per cent or Rs 2.5 per share for FY13. The bank’s stock closed rose 4.25 per cent at Rs 72.3 per share on the Bombay Stock Exchange.